Female Bullying

This was an essay that I did for a school project. After I got my marks back, I decided to post it on my blog, because I feel it carries a very important message. The referencing used is the latest APA style, that RDC uses.

Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls
Written by: Rachel Simmons

Summary:
Basically, this book states that because of the cultural norms, rules, and expectations of our society - as a whole - girls don’t express their aggression through physical acts. They are forced to put on a “nice girl” exterior to fit in with society as a group, and as such, they turn to more sneaky and diabolical means of dealing with their natural, biological aggression.
“Our culture has girls playing a perverse game of Twister, pushing and tangling themselves into increasingly strained, unnatural positions.” (Simmons, 2002). This book talks about the lasting effects and repercussions of the psychological warfare that happens in schools, where females are the perpetrators. It alludes that the psychological torture that happens there is much more lasting than any scars from a physical attack.
Whereas boys are more like to bully casual acquaintances or strangers, girls turn their aggressive behaviors on those closest to them, their own friends. The most common weapon in these girls’ arsenal is the threat of removing friendship. Most girls that were interviewed in this story, commented that the worst feeling was the complete and utter loneliness. They felt like they would die without some form of human contact/connection. It is for this reason why many girls stay in relationships/friendships with their abusers.
Many girls who were once bullied often become bullies themselves. In the section “the bully in the mirror”, the author herself admits that she once excluded a girl because another popular girl was doing so. Despite the fact that she was once a victim of the same kind of bullying, she found herself doing the same thing. In relation to this, girls who were bullied in high school push their daughters to show their own aggression physically, not wanting their own children to become victims of bullying. The section “when cultures collide” talks about African-American girls whose parents encourage them to beat up children who are hitting them. One parent told her child, “If you don’t hurt him, I’m gonna hit you.” (Simmons, 2002).
The cycle of bullying is repetitive, and seemingly never-ending. Though the author offers strategies to help parents, teachers, and victims cope with / prevent bullying, it is difficult to see an end in sight.

Five Main Points:
There are three different types of alternative aggressions, as described in this book. Relational, Indirect, and Social. Relational Aggression “includes acts that harm others through damage, or the threat of damage, to relationships or feelings of acceptance, friendship, or group exclusion.” (Simmons, 2002). An example of this would be excluding someone from social situations to get revenge on them for some conceived “wrong-doing” that they have previously done. Indirect Aggression is “covert behavior in which the perpetrator makes it seem as though there has been no intent to hurt at all.” (Simmons, 2002). An example of this would be getting another person to spread rumors about someone else, and then claiming to have nothing to do with it. Social Aggression is “intended to damage self-esteem or social status within a group.” (Simmons, 2002). An example of this, like Relational Aggression, is social exclusion.
I have definitely seen these types of aggressions in schools that I’ve attended in the past. Girls are very sneaky and diabolical, and know just how to project that “nice girl” image, to make teachers and parents think that they couldn’t possibly be doing anything wrong. I was never bullied in school, but I watched other girls suffer through these abuses, and it is something that needs to be called upon and stopped.
Girls often hate in others what they feel they are lacking in themselves. In the section called “she’s all that”, the author talks about girls who see a girl who is confident in herself as a person, who dresses nice, is physically appealing, smart and funny - they take this girl, and decide that she doesn’t deserve to have this confidence. Most of these occurrences were when a new girl arrived at a school, and the girls there thought that she should act shy and demure, as opposed to confident and at-ease. When the author asked a group of young women if girls want other girls to be confident in general, they replied with a declarative “no”. When she asked why, one girl replied, “Girls don’t because they’re threatened by what they are.” (Simmons, 2002).
I found this to be incredibly unfair, but I also acknowledge that it does happen. I have no trouble believing that girls are like this, but it’s really just cruel to take a beautiful and confident young woman, and make her feel terrible because these girls don’t like some parts of themselves.
Girls thrive on power. The bullies that were interviewed in this book talked about the power that they held over the other girls; how easy it was to manipulate them, with only the simple threat of removing the friendship.
I completely agree with this point. If you look at popular cliques in high schools, there’s always the ringleader, who relishes in her ability to “lord over” the other girls, with a simple double-meaning smile, or a “come hither” crook of her finger. Girls desperately want to be accepted, and the ringleader uses this to her advantage, to increase her power. It’s something that needs to be addressed, and prevented.
Teachers often ignore the type of female aggression that happens in school, or worse, the see it as a natural stage of girl development. Most teachers ignore, or don’t analyze the nonverbal ways in which girls bully each other. If a boy hits another boy, it is stopped immediately, because it is seen as direct physical violence. Whereas, if a girl is throwing dirty looks at another girl, or passing notes with disparaging remarks on it about another girl, they simply see it as normal girl behavior, and since it’s not “hurting” anyone, they don’t press the issue. “If we don’t make alternative aggressions a clear responsibility of school officials, children will continue to be vulnerable to bullying and abuse.” (Simmons, 2002).
YES, they will! I completely agree with that statement, and I know from personal experience that teachers focus more on direct, physical violence, than they do on the female bullying that happens in high school. In a perfect world, teachers would be able to spot all the signs of bullying, put a stop to them immediately, and take time out of their day to talk to these girls about what’s going on, and why it’s wrong. Unfortunately, that world doesn’t exist.
Finally, the last main point that I will acknowledge is this: No one wants to admit that they’re a bully. When trying to get people to open up about their own experiences as bullies, no one wanted to come forward. One girl went so far as to block her from ever contacting her again. The author discovered that instead of getting them to directly talk about their experiences, she could get them to role-play similar situations. In her words, “As long as they didn’t have to personally identify as mean, they had plenty to say.”
I was not at all surprised by this. These girls know that what they are doing is wrong, they know that it is mean and cruel. But because they have to project that “nice girl” image that society cares so much about, they are virtually unwilling to admit that they could be so cruel and vicious. The world would be a much better place if these individuals would admit to what they’ve done, and make a real effort to change.

Quotable Quote:
One thing that I will remember from this book was the quote: “There is a hidden culture of girls’ aggression in which bullying is epidemic, distinctive, and destructive. It is not marked by the direct physical and verbal behavior that is primarily the province of boys. Our culture refuses girls access to open conflict, and it forced their aggression into nonphysical, indirect, and covert forms.” (Simmons, 2002). This pretty much sums up the entire book, and I agree with it completely. I think that if more people were aware of these kinds of behaviors, and what causes them, there would be a lot less bullying in schools.

I Agree:
Odd Girl Out refers to a study done, which confirmed that “the guilt girls experience during aggressive acts decreases significantly when responsibility can be shared with other people.” (Simmons, 2002).
I absolutely agree with this … if you think of it like people being executed by a firing squad: one or more of the guns is loaded with blanks, so that when the person being executed is dead, the shooters don’t have to deal with the absolute guilt that they killed someone. Maybe their gun was the one with blanks. In a social situation where group bullying is involved, it is easy for people to say and think, “I wasn’t the only one doing it. Perhaps someone else’s comment made them depressed.” If the person they are tormenting commits suicide, I have no doubt that this method is how bullies would convince themselves that they were not to blame.

Going Deeper:
One thing that I would like to explore further is looking at girls who are able to withstand bullying. One girl in the books tells her story, where she was ridiculed for her clothing and jewelry and hair, basically her general appearance, but she refused to let it bother her. She dressed how she wanted to, and didn’t let people’s negative comments change her view of herself, or bring her down to “their level”. She befriended a girl who others saw as an outcast, and is still friends with her today. “For some girls, being an cast out is a blessing in disguise, as many are guided into a more centered, authentic self-awareness.” ( Simmons, 2002). I vehemently agree with this statement. Because I was never bullied, I can’t understand how a victim truly feels in that circumstance. All I can do is say that I wish more girls could have the strength that this particular girl did, to stop caring about what people think of them, and just be the person that they are.

Meaningful Information:
I found this book to be thought provoking, meaningful and useful. Thought provoking, because most people don’t really see the kind of psychological warfare that happens in high school. A glare might simply be a glare of annoyance, or it could be a “I’m gonna get you after school” glare, or a “if you tell anyone, I’ll destroy you” kind of glare. It is interesting to me to delve into this from a psychological aspect. I found this book to be meaningful, because the information was sound, and gave a lot of personal experiences, from both the victims, as well as the bullies. It wasn’t just one person making assumptions about something, or inferring a bunch of theories behind what could have caused it - it was a realistic approach to the subject, with real, tangible evidence. I found this book to be useful, because I believe that if more people were aware of this book, they would see bullying in a whole new light. Some people think that victims of bullying are weak, that they just need to stand up for themselves more. The reality is that, in most cases, when a girl stands up for herself, the abuse only gets worse. This information was useful, because it offers strategies - not solutions - to helping people deal with bullying.
I would definitely recommend that this book be placed on a high school reading list, to help enlighten young people about the realities of female aggression.

References:
Simmons, R. (2002). Odd girl out: the hidden culture of aggression in girls. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Trade Publishing.